The plot

The action of this short novel takes place in the late 70's at the Museum-Reserve of A.S. Pushkin "Mikhailovskoye" (Pushkin museum-reserve).

The parallels drawn are obvious. This wordplay: a "Nature Reserve" in the reserve, in fact, issued the idea for the play.

An artistic device for today’s staging was prompted by the Museum itself ~ it is one long tour of a person's life.

Therefore, the theatrical genre was designed as "a sightseeing tour in one act".

In Dovlatov’s fictional prose, as in any big piece of writing, there are a lot of allegories, subtexts and layers of sense bearing meanings, including political and social ones. The Melikhovo theatre above all, tells you a story about life story of ordinary people and their relationships.

Each character of the play is a kind of a museum piece, unique, original and the one and only, but somewhat introspective, living in his narrow inner world, who is in fear to leave his limited privacy.

And only such a strong feeling like love can force a person to make one step forward to cross the barriers and boundaries he created before.

Above all, A Nature Reserve ~ is the story of a man and a woman, their relationships, the story of love that can take care of you, rescue you from any danger and help you to find the way from any maze called a "reserve".

Translation for the English version of the website was made by Mikhail I. Golovan, Head of Marketing and Tourism, Tourist Information Center (TIC) "Melikhovo".

The working group of the Museum express special thanks to: Friends of the Museum and Ray White (Murrell Ray White Jr.), Executive Director of "Moscow Nights", organization of awareness of Russian culture, New Orleans, for their assistance in our project.